DiRT Rally

[Daunt]

Band of Others World Rally Championship League:
https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/league/14621/band-of-others

Current season: 1 70's Quickie Rally

You'll need to login to join, but once in, you can use in-game menus and such to play / race. A season spans multiple events, which can have as many as 24(!) stages. An event needs to be given a time frame for which drivers can complete it. So you'll have x amount of days to finish the event. Unfortunately I don't think you're allowed to move on to the next event until the last's time has expired. I'm not sure if it advances even after everyone has completed it. I'd hope.

[HR][/HR]

Hey all - If you know my likes when it comes to motorsport, you'll know I think Rally Racing is the best, and purest, form of auto racing. So when simulation is mated with rallying, the results are usually incredibly awesome and fun. We saw this with the Colin Mcrae games and Richard Burns Rally, but recently with the Dirt franchise, which took over the McRae series, went more arcade and focused less on the core rally racing as a whole.

Well it looks like that is over! Finally they appear to have gone back to their roots with DiRT Rally. I'm picking this up today and will give you a good idea of what its like and maybe a gameplay video on youtube. In the meantime its here on early access on steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/310560

 

[little P]

I picked this up a couple of days ago and I absolutely love it. I grew up watching Rallies, and I've always been a massive fan. Like you say, there hasn't been a decent game for a long time, but from what I've played it looks like this is the one

Here's a video I recorded a while ago, this was my first ever run recorded for posterity so not "balls out". I was too busy being impressed by the handling, sounds and visuals to go too fast

[video=youtube;M6S_eAzL0iY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6S_eAzL0iY[/video]

 

[Daunt]

I've refused to watch gameplay videos because I have meant to play it this weekend but haven't had the time. I'll watch your gameplay as soon as I get a chance to play myself!

 

[Daunt]

JK i could not resist. You know I owned the American version of that cosworth? The Merkur XR4Ti. 1989. That thing was WAY ahead of its time. 2.3L turbo was a beast back then... mine even had heated leather recaro bucket seats. Was amazing. My first car.

What absolutely amazing sounds and stages. Can't wait for this to progress further!! No dumbass rewinds, no Ken Block... A+ thus far.

 

[little P]

Nice! I had two Sierra's back in the day, this model and a Sapphire. Utterly brilliant rear wheel drive fun That's a nice first car Daunt, I had a 998cc Mini lol bit of a difference

Also, check this video out, sums up a lot of what I love about Rallying, some of the crashes are a brutal though. In fact the second half of this video may as well be captured footage from my driving lol. Everyone walked away as far as I know!

[video=youtube;HPuWQaa0fHM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuWQaa0fHM[/video]

 

[Daunt]

Great video overall. I've watched hundreds of videos on rallying. That is a nice collection though. The beginning there were some awesome "oh shit... wait awesome"

This game though is incredibly difficult though! I have to find something to use for a handbrake or whatever, because a button on the wheel ain't cuttin it. Might use the clutch pedal, now that I think about it. Even so, the game is incredibly challenging. Extremely refreshing after what they turned the Colin McRae series into.

The stages, while there aren't a ton yet (understandably) they are very well fleshed out and very long. Great weather and night effects.

My biggest gripe so far is the UI is absolutely terrible. Mainly navigation. I'm using my G27... so all the buttons (you can't use the mouse) are the actual buttons on the wheel (or pedals, shift pedals, etc) which are stupidly called "button 18, button 19, button 26". So the menu lists these buttons to use, not even listing "enter"... I know that I can hit enter to advance a screen and ESC to go back one... even though they're mapped on the bottom as "Button 18" etc. There's another button that is for info, who knows what that button is...

 

[Kenadian]

Got DiRT Rally, love DiRT Rally; cars are hard to be fast in though, wow.

I had to crank down all the sounds so I could hear the co-driver make the calls.

Thank the Gods they're finally are moving back toward their roots.

Gymkhana sux!

I've heard their actually considering making stages longer as well, yay!!!

I can't wait until modders get their mits onto the replay cams though because there pretty bad currently.

 

[Daunt]

I'm going to make a league for us to run in, you guys in?

I have been having trouble hear him call it out, but its hard to not listen to the awesome engine noises. And yes, down with Ken Block and his ballet car dances.

 

[little P]

Glad there's a few of us on here enjoying it, I agree Duke I would love more control over the replays. Hopefully that's something they will change or like you say it will get modded.

What's involved in this league then Daunt? Sounds interesting

 

[Daunt]

I'm not sure exactly, but we can set it up to be private and set up what runs we want, so do x number of stages. Obviously its not head to head but our results would be directly against each others.

I am not sure of everything we can set... I'm also unsure if everyone needs to be online at the same time (I'm not sure why they would)

Info here: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues

Do I have your steam Little P? I don't think I do... mine is DauntlessK

 

[Daunt]

I made a league here... apply to join:

https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/league/14621/band-of-others

 

[Daunt]

Also going to drop this here... it seems codemasters has set everything up to appeal to gamepad users to start with. The FFB could be a lot better... but anyway some users have come up with better config files for dedicated wheel users:

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/ffb-tweak-no-void.104688/

 

[little P]

I'm not sure exactly, but we can set it up to be private and set up what runs we want, so do x number of stages. Obviously its not head to head but our results would be directly against each others.

I am not sure of everything we can set... I'm also unsure if everyone needs to be online at the same time (I'm not sure why they would)

Info here: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues

Do I have your steam Little P? I don't think I do... mine is DauntlessK

I've added you mate

I suppose we all would be in the same car? And I'm guessing all assists off, full damage etc. I don't know if that stuff can be locked in or we go by the honour system. I'm up for it though, it would be interesting and fun to see how we compare Doesn't have to be super competitive does it but it's more fun than racing against AI eh!

 

[Daunt]

I've read you can't force settings like that, at least not yet. So yes we'll have to get a universal-accepted settings and go by the honor system for now. Like no UI, all assists off, at least manual sequential (I dunno, do we want to force using the H shifter?) of course full damage. I'll look further tonight.

Hoping damage in the future is another thing they improve on. It seems pretty light thus far. I've yet to have it end my race, and I've had some nasty spills

 

[little P]

I think sequential is enough lol. Yes, the damage is crippling to your times (if repairing) and does affect handling and power etc. I am not proud to say I have had an off that ended my race so it can happen...

 

[Daunt]

Here's a couple pics of mine. The american branding for this was the Merkur Xr4Ti. Not the prettiest thing, especially when they decided to go with two tone, keeping the plastic different colored.

It is really awesome that the interior (as shown in your video) perfectly resembles everything that I remember.

 

[Daunt]

OK so I got more details... You need to join the league here (use steam and make an account if you haven't already at racenet: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/league/14621/band-of-others

You'll then be able to see the league in-game. Now, what do we want to do for a first season? A season makes up multiple events, which can have up to 24 stages. So we can make some pretty long, intense rallys. I can disable restarts as well. Basically I set a time frame for an event and you have that time frame to complete all the stages within the event.

I think to start a few, simple 4-6 stage events is good. What class should we start with? 1960s and work our way up?

 

[little P]

OK so I got more details... You need to join the league here (use steam and make an account if you haven't already at racenet: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/league/14621/band-of-others

You'll then be able to see the league in-game. Now, what do we want to do for a first season? A season makes up multiple events, which can have up to 24 stages. So we can make some pretty long, intense rallys. I can disable restarts as well. Basically I set a time frame for an event and you have that time frame to complete all the stages within the event.

I think to start a few, simple 4-6 stage events is good. What class should we start with? 1960s and work our way up?

Sounds good to me, as long as we don't give up before we get to the modern stuff

Personally I'd be ok to skip the 60's and even 70's but that's because I started watching it in the 80's. Up to you sir

 

[little P]

Here's a couple pics of mine. The american branding for this was the Merkur Xr4Ti. Not the prettiest thing, especially when they decided to go with two tone, keeping the plastic different colored.

It is really awesome that the interior (as shown in your video) perfectly resembles everything that I remember.

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This looks both very similar and very different! I bet she shifted when you hit the loud pedal though

I completely forgot about my old 2.0L MkIII as well! Felt bad about that as I had a lot of RWD fun in that thing. Bought it off my Dad and thought it was the most powerful thing on the road at the time lol So, in total I've had a MK1 (square headlights), a MKIII and a Saffie. The Sapphire was the best, loved that thing. It had a 1.8L in it but a full Cosworth bodykit and looked the business. There was no way I could have insured a Cossie at that age (17) so a lookalike was the next best thing

 

[Daunt]

Very nice Little P! Issue with mine wasn't insurance, it was getting parts. The thing wasn't reliable, especially with how I drove it, and considering they made less than 3,000 of my model year (the final year), things broke and costed a lot.

Anyway, I've put up the first season. It's only a 2 event season just to see how things go... with 70's cars to start. It is spread out over a week, so event 1 ends this weekend. So get your practice in. The first event should start soon... you have to make it so that it starts x amount of time away from the current time.